November 3, 1892
THERE is a phase of the Sunday legislation by Congress that has not been set forth as it deserves to be outside of the record of the proceedings of Congress itself. We refer to that phase of the subject in which Congress assumed the position of interpreter of the divine law.
IN the Congressional Record of July 10, 1892, page 6614, is the following:—
MR. QUAY.—On pages 122, line 13, after the word “act” I move to insert:
“And that provision has been made by the proper authority for the closing of the Exposition on the Sabbath day.”
The reasons for the amendment I will send to the desk to be read. The Secretary will have the kindness to read from the Book of Law I send to the desk, the part enclosed in brackets.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT.—The part indicated will be read.
The Secretary read as follows:
“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
THE foregoing is all that was said or done in relation to the question that day. The next legislative day, however, the question was taken up and discussed. The debate was opened by Senator Manderson of Nebraska. And in the Record of July 12, pages 6694, 6695, 6701, we read as follows:—
The language of this amendment is that the Exposition shall be closed on the “Sabbath day.” I submit that if the senator from Pennsylvania desires that the Exposition shall be closed upon Sunday, this language will not necessarily meet that idea. The Sabbath day is not Sunday….
The words “Sabbath day,” simply mean that it is a rest day, and it may be Saturday or Sunday, and it would be subject to the discretion of those who will manage this Exposition, whether they should close the Exposition on the last day of the week, in conformity with that observance which is made by the Israelites and the Seventh-day Baptists, or should close it on the first day of the week, generally known as the Christian Sabbath. It certainly seems to me that this amendment should be adopted by the senator form Pennsylvania, and, if he proposes to close this Exposition, that it should be closed on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday….
Therefore I offer an amendment to the amendment, which I hope may be accepted by the senator from Pennsylvania, to strike out the words, “Exposition on the Sabbath day,” and insert “mechanical portion of the Exposition on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.” …
MR. QUAY.—I will accept the modification so far as it changes the phraseology of the amendment proposed by me in regard to designating the day of the week on which the Exposition shall be closed.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT.—The senator from Pennsylvania accepts the modification in part, but not in whole….
MR. HARRIS.—Let the amendment of the senator from Pennsylvania, as modified, be reported.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT.—It will be again reported.
THE CHIEF CLERK.—On page 122, line 13, after the word “act” it is proposed to amend the amendment of the committee by inserting:
“And that provision has been made by the proper authority for the closing of the Exposition on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.”
This amendment was afterward further amended by the insertion of the proviso that the managers of the Exposition should sign an agreement to close the Fair on Sunday before they could receive any of the appropriation; but this which we have given is the material point.
ALL of this the House confirmed in its vote accepting the Senate amendments. Besides this, the House had already, on its own part, by a vote of 131 to 36, decided that Sunday is the “Christian Sabbath;” and by a vote of 149 to 11 that the seventh day is not the Sabbath. And thus did the Congress of the United States, at the dictate of the churches, not only take sides in a religious controversy and discuss and decide a religious question, but put itself in the place and assume to itself the prerogative of authoritative interpreter of the divine law. For, from the official record of the proceedings there appears these plain facts:
1. The divine law was officially and in its very words, adopted as containing the “reasons” and forming the basis of the legislation. In other words, the legislation proposed only to enforce the divine law as quoted from the Book.
.2. Yet those to whom the legislation was directed and who were expected to execute its provisions were not allowed to read and construe the divine law for themselves; and this for the very reason that there was a possibility that they might take the divine word as it reads and as it was actually quoted in the official proceedings, and shut the Exposition on the day plainly specified in the divine word which was cited as the basis and authority for the action taken.
3. Therefore to preclude any such possibility, Congress assumed the prerogative of official and authoritative interpreter of the divine law, and declared that “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” is the Sabbath of the fourth commandment of the divine law—that “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” is the meaning of the word of the Lord which says: “The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.”
THIS is what the Congress of the United States has done. And in the doing of it, has violated every rule and every principle that governs in the interpretation of law. A leading rule for the interpretation of law is this:—
In the case of all law, it is the intent of the lawgiver that is to be enforced.
What then was the intent of the Lawgiver when the Sabbath commandment was given? Did the Lawgiver declare, or show in any way, his intention? He did. He declared in plain words that the seventh day is the one intended to be [338] observed. Nor did he leave them to decide for themselves which day they would have for the Sabbath. He did not leave it to the people to interpret his law for themselves, nor to interpret it at all. By three special acts every week, kept up continuously for forty years, the Lord showed his intent in the law. The people were fed on the manna in their forty years’ wanderings between Egypt and Canaan. But on the seventh day of the week no manna ever fell. On the sixth day of the week there was a double portion; and that which was gathered on the sixth day would keep over the seventh day, which it could not be made to do on any other day of the week. By this means the Lawgiver signified his intent upon the subject of the day mentioned in the law quoted by Congress. And by keeping it up so continuously and for so long a time he made it impossible for the people then to mistake his intent; and has left all future generations who have the record of it, without excuse in gathering anything else as his intent than that the seventh day is the Sabbath. Therefore when Congress decided that “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” is the meaning of the divine law which says “the seventh day is the Sabbath,” it plainly set itself in contradiction to the word and intent of the Most High.
ANOTHER established rule is this:—
“When words are plain in a written law, there is an end to all construction; they must be followed.” And, “Where the intent is plain nothing is left to construction.”
Are the words of this commandment quoted by Congress, plain words? They are nothing else. There is not an obscure nor an ambiguous word in the whole commandment. Then under the rule there is no room for any construction; much less is their room for any such construction as would make the expression “the seventh day” mean “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday.” Fitting to the point the New Testament has given us an interesting and important piece of narrative. In Mark 16:1, 2, are these words:—
And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him. And very early in the morning the first day of the week, they came unto the sepulchre at the rising of the sun.
These people arose very early in the morning of the first day of the week; yet the Sabbath was past. Now Congress has legislated to secure respect for the Sabbath on “the first day of the week.” Such a thing can never be done however; because Inspiration has declared that the Sabbath is past before the first day of the week comes. It matters not how early our illustrious and devout Congress and the World’s Fair Commission, may get out and around “on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” they will be too late to find the Sabbath there, for the Lord says that then it is “past.”
AND it is the Sabbath according to the commandment, too, that is past when the first day of the week comes—the Sabbath according to this very commandment which Congress has officially cited. Here is the record:—
And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment. Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the spices which they had prepared, and certain others with them. And they found the stone rolled away from the sepulchre. And they entered in, and found not the body of the Lord Jesus. Luke 23:56 and 24:1-3.
Here is the plain word of the Lord stating plainly and proving conclusively that “the Sabbath day” according to the very commandment which Congress has officially cited, is the day before “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” and that the Sabbath day, according to this commandment is past before “the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday,” comes at all, no matter how early they may get up the first day of the week.
IT is true that the churches are at the head of all this, and that Congress did it at the dictation and under the threats of the churches. It is true that the churches have put this false interpretation upon the commandment, and then saddled it off thus upon Congress. This is all true, but that does not relieve Congress from one white of the guilt of perverting the law of the Most High, of forcing into that law a meaning that was never intended to be there, and of putting itself in the place of God and assuming the office of interpreter of his laws. Congress had no business to allow itself to be forced into such a position. Judge Cooley—“Constitutional Limitations,” page 67—says:—
A court or legislature which should allow a change of public sentiment to influence it in giving to a written Constitution a construction not warranted by the intention of its founders, would be justly chargeable with reckless disregard of official oath and public duty.
The theologians gave to the Sabbath commandment a construction which was not in any sense warranted by the intention of the Author of the commandment. They then went to Congress and demanded with threats that it allow itself to be influenced, by these theological sentiments and political threats, to give to the written Constitution of the Government of the living God, a construction which is not in any sense warranted by the intention of the founder of that Constitution. And our national Legislature did allow this sentiment to influence it into doing that very thing. Such a thing done to a human Constitution, an earthly statute, being justly chargeable to reckless disregard of official oath and public duty, what must be chargeable against such an action with reference to the divine Constitution and the heavenly law? The national Legislature—the Congress of the United States—has allowed the churches to draw it into the commission of an act with reference to the Constitution and laws of the living God, which if done only with the laws of men would be reckless disregard of official oath and public duty. And both Congress and the churches are without excuse in the doing of it.
BY this legislation, at the dictate of the churches, Congress has distinctly and definitely put itself and the Government of the United States into the place where it has established, and proposes to enforce, the observance of an institution as sacred, and as due to the Lord, which not only the Lord has neither established nor required, but which is directly contrary to the plain word of the Lord upon the subject of this very institution and its observance as due to the Lord. And in the doing of this Congress has also been caused to assume to itself the prerogative of authoritative interpreter of Scripture for the people of the land and for all who come into the land; and puts itself in the place of God by authoritatively deciding that an observance established and required by the State, and which it calls the Lord’s, is the Lord’s indeed, although the Lord plainly declares the contrary.
IN thus submitting to the dictates of the churches, and making itself the official and authoritative mouthpiece for the theological definitions and interpretations of the divine law, the Congress of the United States has given over the Government of the United States into the hands of the combined churches. A forcible American writer has long ago stated the principle thus:—
To permit a church—any church—… to dictate, beforehand, what laws should or should not be passed, would be to deprive the people of all the authority they have retained in their own hands, and to make such church the governing power, instead of them. [19]
This is precisely what has been done before the eyes of the people of the United States in this Sunday legislation of the Fifty-second Congress. The combined “evangelical” churches, including the Catholic Church, as a united body on this question, did dictate under threats that this law should be passed. Congress did permit it, and did yield to the dictation. And in so doing it did deprive the people of the governmental authority which they had retained in their own hands by the Declaration and the Constitution; and did make the churches the governing power in the Government, instead of the people. “Government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” is gone; and there has been established in its stead, the subjection of the people, by the churches, and for the churches.
This the Congress of the United States has been led by the churches to do. And in the doing of it, it has caused this enlightened Nation, the example and glory of the world, to assume the place and the prerogatives of the governments of the Middle Ages in enforcing the dogmas and the definitions of the theologians, and executing the arbitrary and despotic will of the Church. And it is a burning shame.
A. T. J.